EIPR also notes that the Egyptian government underlines the special status of Sudanese in Egypt noting that the Sudanese population “does not fall into the category of asylum-seeking as understood in the legal and international sense.” Indeed, prior to 1995, the 1976 Wadi El Nil agreement between Sudan and Egypt and previous practices—a legacy of history—gave Sudanese access to education, health services, property ownership, and employment. This ended with the Addis Ababa assassination attempt on President Mubarak in 1995 with the perpetrators allegedly linked to the Sudanese government. The decision to treat Sudanese as other foreigners, however, was not enforced retroactively and an unknown number of Sudanese—likely in the millions—remained in Egypt.

Related Books

This blog was first launched in September 2013 by the World Bank in an effort to hold governments more accountable to poor people and offer solutions to the most prominent development challenges. Continuing this goal, Future Development was re-launched in January 2015 at brookings.edu.